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Some Parents Test Toys at Home

Andrew Jones sat cross-legged on his living room floor, facing a lineup of his 3-year-old daughter’s toys. In one hand he held a painted metal spinning top, and in the other a home test kit for detecting lead in paint.

“If the government isn’t going to test toys for safety, then I’m going to do it myself,” said Mr. Jones, 35, a publicist and the blogger of thingamababy.com.

Like many parents, Mr. Jones said he was suspicious of all of his daughter’s toys now that millions of items for children have been recalled for high levels of lead.

To put his mind at ease, Mr. Jones bought several LeadCheck swab kits from his local hardware store to test dozens of his daughter’s toys. So far, he has not found any lead.

But safety experts warn that the do-it-yourself kits are not necessarily reliable. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention do not recommend them because of concerns over accuracy.

“There are home test kits available, but they are qualitative, and their ability to identify lead at low concentrations is under question,” said Mary Jean Brown, director of the lead program at the C.D.C.

Vendors say that test kits are not intended to gauge lead levels but can be useful for parents. “The kits are not a be-all, end-all,” said Dave LaChance, who created the Lead Inspector kit, “but they can empower the consumer and help parents rule out a product.”